pareve
Syllables: pa·re·ve/ˈpɑː.ɹə.və/US/ˈpɑɹəvə/
pareve adjective: of food: that has no meat or milk in any form as an ingredient.
Adjective
pareve (not comparable)
- Of food: that has no meat or milk in any form as an ingredient.
- My mom made a pareve casserole with soy hot dogs.
- "Parev ice" includes Kosher ice and means the substance intended for sale for human consumption which resembles ice-cream and which— / (a) is usually known as Parev ice or Kosher ice, and / (b) contains no milk or milk derivatives, […]1970, Statutory Instruments, London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, →OCLC, page 4249
- Neutral, bland, inoffensive.
- Judaism in Cranford [New Jersey] was pareve, neither milk nor meat; it had no edge to it. I didn't see this for my life. I was idealistic. I wanted to deal with issues of faith and morality, and all they were worried about were their High Holiday seats. But then I found out I really liked the...1994, Paul Wilkes, quoting Jay Rosenbaum, And They Shall Be My People: An American Rabbi and His Congregation, New York, N.Y.: Atlantic Monthly Press, →ISBN
- Just as kosher is used as slang for "legitimate" or "a-okay", pareve has slang connotations, too. A pareve person is wishy-washy and vague; a pareve deed or decision is "neither fish nor fowl," of no great consequence, middle-of-the-roadish.[2001, Leo Rosten, Lawrence Bush, “pareve”, in The New Joys of Yiddish, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 281, footnote
Examples of pareve in a sentence
- There are on the market many items which resemble such dairy products as coffee cream, sour cream and whipped cream both in taste and appearance but actually are pareve.1990, Bonne Rae London, “Introduction to Kashruth: Why Keep Kosher?”, in Hi-tech Jewish Cooking: Recipes for the Microwave, Processor...
- From the marketing perspective, most manufacturers would prefer that products not inherently dairy (such as cheese snacks) enjoy a Pareve status.2009, Zushe Yosef Blech, Kosher Food Production, 2nd edition, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, page 201:
- Pareve margarine is made up of 100 percent vegetable oil.2011, Avrom Honig, “Bubbe” [pseudonym], “Quick Notes on Keeping Kosher”, in Feed Me Bubbe: Recipes and Wisdom from America's Favorite...
- Judaism in Cranford [New Jersey] was pareve, neither milk nor meat; it had no edge to it.1994, Paul Wilkes, quoting Jay Rosenbaum, And They Shall Be My People: An American Rabbi and His Congregation, New York, N.Y.: Atlantic...
Forms of pareve
| alternative form | parev |
|---|---|
| alternative form | parve |
Origin of pareve
Borrowed from Yiddish פּאַרעוו, פּאַרעווע (parev, pareve), of uncertain origin. Suggestions include: * Perhaps from Middle High German bar (“bare, naked”), from Old High German bar, and thus cognate with English bare. * Perhaps from a West Slavic source such as Czech párový (“occurring in pairs”), because according to Jewish dietary laws, meat and milk cannot be combined, but as pareve food contains neither, it can be paired with either meat dishes or milk dishes.
Questions about pareve
- What does pareve mean?
- Pareve means of food: that has no meat or milk in any form as an ingredient.
- How do you use pareve in a sentence?
- There are on the market many items which resemble such dairy products as coffee cream, sour cream and whipped cream both in taste and appearance but actually are pareve.
- What part of speech is pareve?
- Pareve is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce pareve?
- Pareve is pronounced /ˈpɑː.ɹə.və/ (UK).
Words near pareve in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pareve (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pareve.wav.
Cite this entry: “pareve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pareve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.